She smiled. ‘Of course.’
‘Right.’ Well, that was that. Quickly he sculled his half-full beer, finishing the bottle before he said, ‘Let’s do it.’
‘I’ll grab a couple more beers and meet you out there.’
‘I think I’ll pass. I probably need to do this without a crutch.’
‘Okay, sure.’ She nodded. ‘You do you. But trust me, I wish I’d been allowed to drink alcohol at twelve, because I sure as shit could have done with it back then.’
Fin laughed. Who was he to ignore advice from an expert? ‘Alright then, get one for me, too.’
She grinned. ‘Two crutches coming up.’
*
Ten minutes later, box cutters in one hand, Fin tapped his beer bottle against Sweeney’s and took a deep swig. Setting it aside, he ran the knife through the layer of sticky tape sealing both boxes shut. ‘Going in.’
Opening the flaps of the first box, a faint waft of Old Spice—his dad’s favourite cologne—surrounded him in a cloud of nostalgia that stole his breath. A part of him had worried (hoped, even) after all his indecisiveness that this would all be terribly anticlimactic, but it wasn’t. Just a hit of the cologne that would forever remind him of his dad had his nerves cinched in anticipation.
‘You okay?’
Fin glanced at Sweeney and nodded. He was. So far. The nostalgia was comforting, like snuggling into the old dressing gown his grandfather had worn each night as soon as the first chill of autumn hit. It had smelled of woodsmoke from their fireplace and the peaty whiskey he’d favoured, and it had hung on the back of the bathroom door for a couple of years after he’d died.
The first thing he saw was his dad’s Murphy’s Bar cap and Fin smiled as he picked it up. His father had loved this hat. There’d been several different versions of the hat over the years, the designs moving with the times, but this one had been his favourite because it was the one he’d worn to the hospital the day Fin was born.
A lump lodged in Fin’s throat as he ran a thumb over the dark green of the visor. He swallowed hard. God… why had they argued over something so bloody … unimportant? He could have easily defused the situation by rolling his eyes playfully and humouring his father with a light joke.
Hell, he could have just lied and kept his old man happy.
But no, his father’s familiar refrain about Fin’s love life had found a nerve that day. He’d been tired and hung over and, atthirty, he hadn’t wanted the damn lecture—again.
‘How about we make two piles?’ Sweeney said, standing at his elbow. ‘On this side of the box’—she pointed—‘we keep. Over there’—she indicated the opposite side—‘we ditch.’
Fin nodded absently, not having thought about the logistics, which made him even more pleased she was by his side. Having someone practical here was a good idea, even if he already knew he was probably going to keep it all.
Placing the hat on thekeepside, he returned his attention to the box, picking up the next object with a smile. ‘Remember this?’
The silver whistle dangled from its ratty white lanyard decorated with green shamrocks. Fin ran his finger over the name that had been engraved on the barrel—Coach. It had been presented to Michael by the local Gaelic football committee at the end of their first ever season, in appreciation of his hard work and drive at establishing the competition in the area.
Sweeney reached for it and he passed it over. ‘When I conjure a picture of your dad in my head, he’s wearing this whistle.’
Fin smiled. Ithadbeen an almost permanent fixture around his father’s neck during the season, and the familiar sharp rattle of it whipping across the footy field was one of the many notes from the soundtrack of his childhood.
‘I bet we could swab it for his DNA and recreate him like they did the dinosaurs inJurassic Park.’
Then maybe he could have that last conversation again. Tell his father he loved him and appreciated him, not tobutt out.
‘I remember that time he used it to whistle at your mother as she was mowing the lawn. She was really cranky because your father had promised to do it but had been distracted by some club crisis.’ She grinned at him. ‘She was so furious when he tried to explain he only did it to get her attention because she was doing it wrong. I really did think she’d make good on her threat and your dad would be blowing that thing out his ass for the rest of his life.’
Fin laughed, the memory catching in his chest. He and Sweeney gawping as his mother had stormed up to his father, shoved her hands on her hips and said, ‘I am not a Banshee nor am I an animal, Michael Murphy. If you ever blow that whistle at me again you’d better be prepared to have it surgically removed from your rectum.’
His father had been instantly contrite and apologetic and had taken over the mowing, but Fin had seen him laughing to himself several times, as though the whole interlude had tickled his very Irish sense of humour. It hadn’t been the first time Fin had seen his mother’s rare firecracker side, but it had been the first time he’d realised his father was totally into it.
And also realised who truly wore the pants in their family.
Fin placed the whistle on the keep side and continued. Mostly what followed was a lot of Banshees paraphernalia. Different jerseys throughout the years. Hats and scarves. Pins and badges and felt pennants all inscribed with whatever years they were awarded. Several trophies Michael had been awarded for coaching. A shoebox of newspaper clippings his father had faithfully cut out and kept over the years from the very beginning up until his death.
The newsprint might have faded and a lot of the pages yellowed but the history of the club sprang from every line, every faded photograph telling its own story. And, without consultation, Fin and Sweeney thumbed through them all, commenting every now and then but otherwise in silence reading about sign-on days and season kick-offs. Fixture results and competition schedules. The annual awards night and alumni success stories.
